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Hypersmith
2017-06-11, 11:16 AM
Hey everyone! So this is mainly some edits to an already existing class The_Doctor made, over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?413537-Cultists-of-the-Ancient-Ones-A-5th-edition-H-P-Lovecraft-Class&p=22082939#post22082939). I wanted to give a shot at making it a real debuffer class, so I made some edits, found here! (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ew2zfQeVsWCNWCQ-JfsnqWtPogYQO1gr_-6oCzrwht8/edit?usp=sharing)

I'd love some feedback, since I want to introduce this to my game.

Lalliman
2017-06-11, 01:26 PM
I love me some Lovecraft. This class is difficult to assess though, because I’m not sure what you imagine its battlefield role to be. I get the vibe that it’s supposed to be a middle-liner, someone who alternates between casting spells and fighting in melee, kind of like a valour bard. If that’s the intention, then I’m afraid it doesn’t do a very good job.

For one, it lacks any at-will damage output. At early level, you can get one spear attack per round, and get advantage on those attacks with Sacrifice. That’s decent at early level, but that’s all it is. You gain more uses of Sacrifice, but your damage per round gets stuck at 1d8+5. All martial classes need damage scaling to remain viable: Extra Attack, Sneak Attack, Rage damage bonus, Improved Critical, more ki points to spend on Flurry of Blows, more spell slots to spend on Smite… it needs something like those.

Second problem, survivability. This class has barely any survivability features. It has d8 hit dice and light armour, just like a rogue, but it lacks the rogue’s Cunning Action, Evasion and Uncanny Dodge, which they need to stay alive. It can’t really function as a midline class, because they don’t have the mobility to navigate the battlefield without getting pounded by opportunity attacks. The Cthulhu cultist does get heavy armour… but that’s not enough to make them a frontliner. It takes a lot of survivability to be a good frontliner: the fighter and paladin both have d10 hit dice, high AC and self-healing, and the barbarian has d12 hit dice and damage resistance while raging. The cultist has none of that.

So how do we fix it? I think there’s two ways we can do it. One is to take the way that the class works now and improve upon that. By that I mean that the core class contains its martial abilities, and the archetypes provide utility and support through spells and supernatural abilities. If that’s how you want to do it, you first need scaling at-will damage. If you don’t think Extra Attack is appropriate, maybe add scaling necrotic damage on attacks with your Ceremonial Weapon. Maybe 1d8 at 5th, 2d8 at 11th and 3d8 at 16th. Don’t know how balanced that is, but to give you an idea. You’ll still be worse at hitting things than a true martial (which is fine considering your spells), but you won’t be totally useless. Then for survivability, I’d suggest something to help you retreat from the front lines. Bonus action Disengage might not be appropriate, but maybe an attack that prevents enemies from making opportunity attacks. Maybe any enemy who takes necrotic damage from your Ceremonial weapon can’t take reactions for 1 round.

The other opportunity would be to have the Cultist’s combat role depend on their archetype, similar to how the cleric can be either a melee combatant or a ranged support depending on their domain. Cthulhu could be a frontliner, with increased HP and perhaps regeneration at high level. Nyarlathotep could be a support who messes with his enemies from the backlines. And Yog-Sothoth might be a midliner, who uses teleportation to avoid being locked down. It will take a lot more effort to design the different archetypes in different roles, but it could be very cool.

I could spout some more specific ideas for features, but I’ll let you deliberate on the essay I just wrote first. Below are some more minor points I feel are worth bringing up.


1. Saving throw proficiency is supposed to be one major save (Dex, Con, Wis) and one minor save (Str, Int, Cha). This isn't obligated, but it's hard to account for balance-wise if you give two strong saves.

2. I feel like the "cannot be disarmed" part of ceremonial weapon is kind of odd. How am I supposed to imagine that, does it stick to your hand? Isn't being able to summon it enough, since that makes you basically immune to disarming anyways?

3. Incantation: This isn't really a problem, but 5e usually doesn't deal with effects that last X rounds. Conditions usually either last 1 round, or 1 minute with a recurring save. This ability would feel more at-place in 5e if it worked the same way.

4. Sacrifice: The above statement applies to this as well. But more importantly: +1 attack for THREE rounds AND advantage for TWO rounds? Why so needlessly convoluted? Why not just advantage for X rounds? 5e tends to avoid situational +X bonuses anyways.

5. Alien Geometries: Again, -1 penalties shouldn't be a thing in 5e. It's not interesting and I imagine the players might even forget that it exists. How about the ability to impose disadvantage on ranged attacks as a reaction? Getting proficiency with tridents is a nice touch... shame that the trident is trash. Maybe add a point saying that you can treat a trident as a d8 (versatile d10) weapon, in case the GM hasn't made that standard yet. Oh and, as currently worded, a cultist of Cthulhu has light and heavy armour proficiency, but no medium.

6. Touch of Carcosa: Gaining THP equal to half the damage would make the math easier, while barely changing the balance.

7. Insanity: If they fail the saving throw, do they know you’ve tried to charm them / turn them insane? Is there anything stopping you from trying again? I see a lot of potential for abuse here.

Hypersmith
2017-06-11, 03:59 PM
Hey dude - I really appreciate the feedback, and put in features to try to specialize each subclass and to give the class a powerspike at level 5 too, since it really didn't have that. Here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D1mUwGhSqatzUfGBZ5rWsOo_sS9Xeyl7Ji83J3F_Lyo/edit?usp=sharing) is a new version!

Hypersmith
2017-06-11, 06:05 PM
I've given the new cthulhu a short playtest. The only thing I think I'll change is adding a bonus action - universal one - for the class as a whole. I'll test out nyarlathotep next.

Hypersmith
2017-06-11, 11:58 PM
Hey guys! I'd love some feedback. The updated class is vastly different than the originally posted one, a lot more cohesive (imo). Still needs feedback of course.

Lalliman
2017-06-12, 05:13 AM
Looks much better. You can now deal decent damage in melee, and Sacrifice allows for a greater damage spike, so it would be a valid tactic to move into melee, use Sacrifice against the most important target, fight them for three rounds or until they're dead, and then retreat to cast some spells from the backline. That’s how I imagine it’s expected to be played.

I would change the wording of Ceremonial Weapon to this: "At level 5, your attacks with this weapon deal an additional 1d8 necrotic damage. This increases to 2d8 at 11th level and 3d8 at 18th level." Just in case someone might misinterpret and think the 2d8 stacks on top of the 1d8. Also, it's probably a good idea to put Ceremonial Weapon on the class table at level 1, and then put "Ceremonial Weapon improvement" at 5th, 11th and 18th, so people don't forget about it.

As for the archetypes, Cthulhu makes for a good melee class, I think. Still more of a midliner than a frontliner, but heavy armour proficiency and Gift of R'lyeh will make you fairly durable, and Blasphemous Flesh is a good way to retreat from melee combat without taking an opportunity attack. Push them away, then retreat to either heal yourself or cast Incantation on someone. Since you mentioned bonus actions, it might be interesting if Blasphemous Flesh had a second benefit that lets you increase your melee range by 5 feet as a bonus action, by elongating your arm in some hideous way. That way, Blasphemous Flesh would still be useful while Sacrifice is active.

Nyarlathotep seems like a mixed bag. The new Inscrutable Mask is much more useful than the old one, but the loss of those suggestion spells is a big hit (though admittedly those were probably too powerful). The archetype doesn’t have a very clear role at low level. They get extra durability from Nyarlathotep’s Guile, but it doesn’t count for a lot without Cthulhu’s improved AC and melee abilities. This seems like it should be the backline archetype, so maybe it needs another spell to cast early on. I don’t know, it will need testing. One little issue: Blood of Chaos says you can gain two Alter Self traits, but that’s already the case from Nyarlathotep’s Guile.

Yog-Sothoth makes a fair midliner. I’m not sure why you gave them proficiency with polearms, but it really helps their martial abilities. Their HP and AC aren’t great, but they can attack from 10 feet away, use Turn Back Time to avoid attacks, and use Forgotten From Time to escape from a difficult fight. At higher level, you can use Key to the Gate to escape engagements or flank your enemies when they least expect it. You could probably afford to give more casts of Key to the Gate though. A caster of the same level has 3 4th level spell slots, so as is you’re getting less than them unless you have 20 Wis. Key to the Gate seems like this archetype’s main selling point, so I would give casts equal to your Wis mod.

Hastur (I hope writing his name won’t summon him) is a solid backliner. All his class features favour fighting from afar, so he’s probably the most consistent and easy-to-play of the archetypes. His 5th level feature is too powerful though. Not the out-of-combat part, but the part where Incantation invokes Geas. Geas is a 5th level spell, so you shouldn’t be able to cast that until class level 9th. He gets this in addition to a 1/day use of Hunger of Hadar and Crown of Madness, which is just too much to get in one level. You could probably remove the Geas part completely and still be fine. Yellow Sign also seems very strong compared to the other archetypes, granting two powerful control features at once. Hastur might be overall a little too solid.

Hypersmith
2017-06-12, 09:51 AM
I love you dude. Here is the update. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_NIX2r_NaAdgj90BJ5Bdp3RjAd_MNyhZ2v7SROlQuHc/edit?usp=sharing) At this point trying to nail down that Nyarlathotep subclass and to get everything to fit into 5e terminology. I think Nyarlathotep works best as a high Dex class, but we'll see. Since you can save on sacrifice now, I'm also thinking of increasing the number of casts you get.

Lalliman
2017-06-13, 09:01 AM
It's starting to look very solid. I'll comment on a few more things that catch my eye, but I don't think there's anything gravely lacking anymore, so the best thing to do now would be to play-test it.

Cthulhu: I see you added additional HP. I was going to suggest the same thing, but I wonder if 2 extra HP per level is going overboard. Since Cthulhu makes for a fairly straight-forward martial, you should maybe do some calculations of this archetype's HP, AC, and DPR at major levels (maybe 5 and 11) and compare it to the fighter at those same levels. That'll give some good perspective on whether it's balanced. Make sure to factor in Sacrifice and Action Surge separately. I would do it, but I don't have the time right now.

Also, it just occurred to me that Gift of R'lyeh feels a bit off. It gets barely any scaling, so it becomes an increasingly less worthwhile use of your action as you level. Perhaps you could change it to heal (Con mod) damage per round for ten rounds, without the burst of healing up front. That way, it continues scaling into high level (you're unlikely to max Con before level 16) instead of being front-loaded. It also makes it more worthwhile to activate right before the start of a fight, when you're not damaged yet. A player having the foresight to know when a fight is about to happen should be rewarded, I think. (Alternatively, you could turn Gift of R'lyeh into a bonus action, but I wouldn't do that, because it takes away some decision-making.)

Nyarlathotep: Having Guile give permanent resistance to physical damage, in addition to all the THP you gain from alter self, seems kind of ridiculous. Again, you should probably do some calculations to figure out exactly how much durability is fair, but my intuition says that you should choose between the THP or the physical resistance.

That's it. Everything else seems solid and ready for play-testing.